Weird. I could not get my board to power down just now with the power switch. The power switch switches +5v to a logic level mosfet to turn the board on. I traced the issue to the RCA cable. It was plugged into the amp, which was off but connected to the same battery as the Mighty.

I can't for the life of me figure out how the mosfet could turn on to allow power to flow. The pin that controls it is not attached to anything but a switch on the board which is off, and some pins for an external switch which is what I was using to switch it. So the +5v had to have been coming from somewhere else. But there is no connection to +5v from the RCA cable. The + RCA line goes to the DAC output.

My schematic and layout are in this post btw:http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,150336.msg1129683.html#msg1129683

Oh I forgot to mention... I just tried disconnecting the ground to the Mighty and allowing the RCA to carry the ground, thus eliminating the ground loop, but I still get the noise. So it seems it isn't the ground loop at all causing it. Yet a transformer between the Mighty and the Amp in the RCA line fixes the noise issue. It's gotta be the inductance or something. Like I said before I also tried caps on both + and - RCA lines and that ought to break the ground loop as well but that didn't help with the noise either.

I think you're beginning to learn a painful lesson on why you don't produce a PCB in large numbers until you've had a chance to run it through the wringer for a while. ;-) You know what they say ... in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Having a schematic and a prototype that works is only half the battle. (Guess how I know...)

I agree with you that the noise is probably not caused by a ground loop. Trying to alleviate the noise using techniques intended to fix ground loops is just going to be a waste of time. There were some good suggestions a while back on trying to isolate the high current loops using capacitance and such. Did you try that? I know it's not what you want to hear based on board layout, but if you can, test the theory anyway. If for no other reason than to prove it wrong and move on to something else. Do whatever you have to do to get a large cap on the power rails near your LEDs and see what happens.

I think you're beginning to learn a painful lesson on why you don't produce a PCB in large numbers until you've had a chance to run it through the wringer for a while. ;-)

Well I didn't really have a choice.

I raised the $16K to produce the boards in May of last year (actually $14K since Kickstarter and Amazon took a chunk) and then I realized my original design wasn't going to cut it and redesigned the whole thing virtually from scratch, upgrading the 328P to the 1284P, increasing the available IO ports, changing the power LED to an indicator LED, redesigning the audio circuit to provide better isolation from noise in the power and ground planes (apparently I didn't do a good enough job), moving all the LED drivers off the main board (driven by the realization that with a proton pack, at least one on the board would end up being wasted, and it was more efficient to create modules that could allow ribbon cables to be plugged in), and finally just before shipping, I had to remove the voltage regulator from the board and replace it with the mosfet because I realized I'd screwed up the power dissipation calculations and the regulator was going to melt the board to slag.

I stupidly assumed that if I followed the recommended layout for the TLC5947 exactly that that would provide adequate noise suppression. And I didn't encounter anyone who'd mentioned having this sort of problem with them. And as for the audio circuit, I did the same, following the schematic, and looking at how others designed their line outs. I tried my best to isolate that portion of the circuit from noise, but information on how to properly isolate the audio portion of a circuit is hard to come by.

Anyway, I finished the redesign at the end of September and many folks were expecting the boards for Halloween and I thought maybe I could still put together something in that time, but obviously that didn't happen. Programming them and working out the kinks with the audio by moving the LED drivers to their own data bus, and then getting an SD card based bootloader to work took several more months, and I've finally just started to ship them. Yes, I've had to ship them with the audio problem. My customers are willing to purchase a ground loop isolator, but not willing to wait any longer.

Which is what they'd be doing (waiting) if I had not had the PCB house press full steam ahead in October because it took till now to find most of the issues and I still don't have a solution for the audio issue. I've got some suggestions I can try but I don't know they'll fix the problem for certain. And even if they do fix the current problem, what of all the noise that is generated when I power servos? Fixing the LED drivers isn't going to fix that. I haven't yet tested the servo noise issue with the ground loop isolator. I suspect it will greatly reduce the noise, but not eliminate it completely, as has been the case with the LED drivers. A combination of greatly eliminating and attempting to reduce it seems like the best course of action. It's not like I have tons of space on the board to add big capacitors.

So I really had no choice in the matter.

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I agree with you that the noise is probably not caused by a ground loop. Trying to alleviate the noise using techniques intended to fix ground loops is just going to be a waste of time. There were some good suggestions a while back on trying to isolate the high current loops using capacitance and such. Did you try that? I know it's not what you want to hear based on board layout, but if you can, test the theory anyway. If for no other reason than to prove it wrong and move on to something else. Do whatever you have to do to get a large cap on the power rails near your LEDs and see what happens.

Oh, I believe them when they say it's the LED modules causing the noise, but modifying them at this point is not going to happen. That is something that will have to wait for a redesign. Right now, I am starting to ship the boards as is because with the ground loop isolator they work good enough for their intended purpose. Adding more capacitance is something I will try when I have some time and before I get the next batch manufactured, assuming there is a next batch.

But assuming it is high current loops in the LED drivers... What would the isolation transformer on the RCA line be doing to fix that, and how might I replicate that without a big transformer? (big relative to my tiny 2"x2" board I mean) If it were simply that the board's ground was at a different potential than the amp, and I'm sure that's true as well, I would have expected the capacitors on the RCA cable to do something, but they didn't do a thing.

You have a large pulsed current flowing from the battery to the LED boards, via the microcontroller board. Because of the resistance and inductance of the power supply lines, this means that the ground on the microcontroller board carries a small pulsed voltage relative to the battery negative terminal. The line output from the microcontroller board is referenced to the microcontroller board ground, therefore this small pulsed voltage gets added to the line output (as viewed relative to the battery negative terminal, and hence the amplifier ground).

The transformer fixes the problem because you feed the difference between line output and microprocessor ground to the primary (thereby cancelling out that small pulsed voltage) and this gets reflected at the secondary.

Here are some suggestions to reduce or eliminate the problem:

1. You really should provide adequate power supply bypassing on the LED boards. Without this, your boards may also generate RFI. I think you need at least 1000uF between +5V (the positive supply to the LEDs) and the ground pin of the TLC5947. 2200uF or 4700uF would be better. An inductor in series with the incoming +5V on the LED board (as discussed earlier) would be the next step.

2. Include a small PCB-mounting audio isolation transformer on the microcontroller board.

3. In the diagram in your original post, you have a ground connection to R11, R12 and JP7. If you choose not to include a transformer, then make provision on your board to separate this ground from the main ground on the board, with a jumper connecting them together. When using a common supply, remove the jumper. This way, the voltage divider will be referenced to the amplifier input ground instead of the microcontroller ground, so at the same time as reducing the signal voltage, the divider will reduce the noise voltage passed to the amplifier. Removing the jumper will eliminate the ground loop too.

4. Use thick wires between the microcontroller board and the battery (to reduce resistance), and ensure the power and ground conductors are in the same cable, or twisted around each other (to minimize the area they enclose and thereby minimize the inductance).

Formal verification of safety-critical software, software development, and electronic design and prototyping. See http://www.eschertech.com. Please do not ask for unpaid help via PM, use the forum.

You have a large pulsed current flowing from the battery to the LED boards, via the microcontroller board. Because of the resistance and inductance of the power supply lines, this means that the ground on the microcontroller board carries a small pulsed voltage relative to the battery negative terminal.

I don't understand. Is it because the ground plane and wires act kind of like a capacitor as power flows in and the battery is unable to discharge them back to 0V quickly enough that the ground potential of the board fluctuates as the LED modules draw power? Is that why you suggested I use larger wires? Because with less resistance the battery will be able to pull the ground plane back down to 0V (relative to the battery ground) more quickly?

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The transformer fixes the problem because you feed the difference between line output and microprocessor ground to the primary (thereby cancelling out that small pulsed voltage) and this gets reflected at the secondary.

Makes sense.

So am I right in assuming that the reason putting a cap in series with the RCA's ground pin didn't work, was because the fluctuations on the ground were AC in nature, and could pass right through the cap?

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1. You really should provide adequate power supply bypassing on the LED boards. Without this, your boards may also generate RFI. I think you need at least 1000uF between +5V (the positive supply to the LEDs) and the ground pin of the TLC5947. 2200uF or 4700uF would be better. An inductor in series with the incoming +5V on the LED board (as discussed earlier) would be the next step.

I will, when I have a new batch of boards made.

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2. Include a small PCB-mounting audio isolation transformer on the microcontroller board.

Not gonna happen.

1. The boards need to be really small. I'd never be able to fit a transformer on there and still fit the board where it needs to go. (Handheld costume props.)

2. All audio transformers filter out some frequencies, but most I've looked at don't provide data on what frequencies they're good for, and I don't know how to calculate that.

3. They tend to be fairly expensive and many aren't stocked in large quantities on Digikey.

That's one of the cheaper ones available in large quantiies, and one of the few that actually provides data on the frequencies it handles but it's still too big, and ugly, and it only handles down to 100hz which means I'd lose all the bass in my audio, so that's no good.

As a last resort I could make my own ground loop isolator cables with a custom PCB and heat shrink the thing. That wouldn't be too bad but still, a costly solution, labor intensive, and I'd lose frequencies I want to keep.

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3. In the diagram in your original post, you have a ground connection to R11, R12 and JP7. If you choose not to include a transformer, then make provision on your board to separate this ground from the main ground on the board, with a jumper connecting them together. When using a common supply, remove the jumper. This way, the voltage divider will be referenced to the amplifier input ground instead of the microcontroller ground, so at the same time as reducing the signal voltage, the divider will reduce the noise voltage passed to the amplifier. Removing the jumper will eliminate the ground loop too.

This sounds like an excellent solution and is something I may be able to try out with a little surgery on one of my boards.

I wish I didn't need to use a jumper to do it... Don't really have room for a switc. Perhaps I could just require the user to tie the board and amp grounds together at the power input if they choose to run them on separate power sources? 95% of them will choose to run them off the same battery, so if I could get away without adding a jumper to the board that would be nice.

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4. Use thick wires between the microcontroller board and the battery (to reduce resistance), and ensure the power and ground conductors are in the same cable, or twisted around each other (to minimize the area they enclose and thereby minimize the inductance).

I'll make that suggestion to my customers, but I have no control over what they do there. The first guy I gave a board to connected the amp up with like 28 AWG wire.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think I have a little better understanding of what's going on now at least and I can try out tying those grounds together on the line out and see how that works. If that works that will be perfect.

I don't understand. Is it because the ground plane and wires act kind of like a capacitor as power flows in and the battery is unable to discharge them back to 0V quickly enough that the ground potential of the board fluctuates as the LED modules draw power?

No, as he said, the ground traces act like an inductor. They're unable to change instantly. With DC pulses, the voltage (in theory) goes from 0v to +5v instantaneously, then after the PWM delay, back to 0v instantaneously. In real life, that just can't happen. But, the fatter and shorter those traces are, the closer to the ideal behavior you will get.

So am I right in assuming that the reason putting a cap in series with the RCA's ground pin didn't work, was because the fluctuations on the ground were AC in nature, and could pass right through the cap?

No, my last answer to this still stands. You formed a very high-frequency lowpass filter. You probably eliminated the MHz-region noise adequately, but it takes big caps to filter low frequencies. Of course, if the noise is already in the audio band on the RCA cables, a low enough filter will remove audio as well. That's why the proper fix is to prevent the LF (audible range) noise from leaving the source of that noise at all.

I sympathize with your quandary. Prototyping electronics is often an expensive process, but it has to be done. Real-world constraints affect performance in big ways. Data sheets and example schematics are never enough to tell you what is really going to happen. Out of a couple thousand dollars spent at fab houses, I'm not sure I have even a single project where the first PCB was ready for mass distribution. I am nowhere near confident enough in my engineering ability to even consider promising a product before I have a completely-built prototype that I'm able to put hands and scopes on. Although, sometimes I can hack it or live with it enough to use it, but I still go back and touch-up the design just in case I ever have spare room on a future PCB order.

I know this is an old thread, but I'm in the process of redesigning this board now, and I have a question about something DC42 said a few posts back:

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In the diagram in your original post, you have a ground connection to R11, R12 and JP7. If you choose not to include a transformer, then make provision on your board to separate this ground from the main ground on the board, with a jumper connecting them together. When using a common supply, remove the jumper. This way, the voltage divider will be referenced to the amplifier input ground instead of the microcontroller ground, so at the same time as reducing the signal voltage, the divider will reduce the noise voltage passed to the amplifier. Removing the jumper will eliminate the ground loop too.

While I don't entirely understand how this setup is supposed to work, it sounds plausible, and it's the simplest and cheapest solution I've found, so I guess I'll have to try it out.

But one thing bothers me.

If this is caused by noise from the LEDs, why does it all work fine when the amplifier has its own power source?

Also, I did some tests today with one of the kits. Here are the results. In all tests, the amplifier is being powered from the same power source as the kit.

1. Audio cable directly to amplifier - Loud screeching over audio which is much quieter than normal.2. Audio cable to amp via ground loop isolator - Normal audio, with hardly any LED noise.3. Audio cable with only + line connected - Same as #1.4. Audio cable with only + line connected w/ ground loop isolator - Same as #15. Audio cable with only - line connected to + output terminal - No audio, as expected.

I tried #3 because the amplifier shares a ground with the board, and connecting only the + pin should break any ground loop. Yet the result was the same. That indicates to me that the issue isn't actually a ground loop.

And DC42 did say:

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The transformer fixes the problem because you feed the difference between line output and microprocessor ground to the primary (thereby cancelling out that small pulsed voltage) and this gets reflected at the secondary.

Which seems to make sense. If the microcontroller's ground is at say, -2.5V relative to the amplifier's ground, and it's 5V rail is at 2.5V relative to the amplifier's ground, then that's still a 5V difference between its ground and 5V rail. So I can see how that would be carried across the transformer coil, since the secondary's ground is referenced to the amplifier.

I'm still having trouble grasping what his voltage divider solution does though.

Hm.. if the divider normally drops 5V to 1V... but the 5V relative to the amplifier is 2.5V... and the ground of the amplifier is at 0V relative to itself... then wouldn't the voltage divider change 5V to 0.5V, from the amplifier's point of view?

Still, if the board is at a potential 2.5V below the amplifier, that would make 1V into -1.5V.

And I just tested it with my multimeter... got a weird result too.

I disconnected the audio connector from the board, leaving it connected directly to the amp. No isolator. I then touched the negative prove to the negative side of the audio connector, and the positive probe to the ground side of my audio output.

The meter read 0.33V when reading volts, and when reading millivolts it fluctuated between 0.25V to 0.35V.

So the microcontroller's ground appears to be at a HIGHER potential than the amplifier. I'd expected the ground would be lower. I don't know why I expected that, but I figured that's what high current draw from the LEDs would do to it. I guess it's somehow pulling it up though? Or maybe the amplifier's higher current draw is pulling it down?

Either way, there's around a third of a volt difference in ground potential between the two devices, and the ground of the microcontroller does seem to be varying. Unless that's the amp. Perhaps I should have tried to measure the two relative to the power input jack as well.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to make of this. If the ground of the microcontroller is 0.3V higher than the amp, and its 5V rail is as well, and the voltage divider reduces 5V to 1V relative to the microcontroller ground, then that 1V would be 1.3V by the amplifier's reckoning.

I'm not sure if that means it should be louder though. The volume of an audio signal is determined by how much it varies, not the DC offset. And it should still vary just as much. So why does it end up being quieter?

I did some more tests today. In my previous tests I was probing the output of the DAC with my amplifier ground referenced voltage divider, but I had not disconnected the original voltage divider from the circuit, so there may have been noise getting in through there since there was a path through the original voltage divider to ground.

This time, I removed the 470 ohm resistor from the board.

So whereas in my original circuit I had something like this, with the SJ1 jumper soldered to connect the voltage divider to the microcontroller ground:

In the new circuit I removed the 470 ohm resistor to disconnect all that from the DAC line out, and then recreated the circuit, minus the connection to the microcontroller ground by leaving SJ1 open.

I did not have a 47uF ceramic cap on hand, so I used an electrolytic cap in it's place with the + side towards the DAC.

I also tried the circuit with and without the C19 bypass cap in place.

Results?

After connecting the amplifier to the + and - line out, and making sure the polarity was correct, I probed the DAC output pin with the input to the breadboarded voltage divider and... no improvement. It sounded exactly the same as before. Loud noise over quiet audio.

I then tried connecting the amplifier directly to the board, without a voltage divider.

In no case did I hear any audio of course because without the 470 ohm resistor in place there was no connection to the DAC's line out. But there is still a connection to ground through the + output since the voltage divider circuitry is still there. So it makes sense that I'd hear the noise with this set up.

But what does not make sense to me is why the amplifier ground referenced voltage divider isn't helping at all. I was told this setup would cancel out the noise much like the transformer in the ground loop isolator.

Any ideas what's going on or what I should try next?

I can't use a transformer. I can't require the amplifier to be on it's own battery. There is a TI headphone amp chip that's supposed to help with ground loops but it's not cheap and I don't really have space on the board for it. I'm really hoping to find a cheap solution for this.